


Something Broken

by London_Halcyon



Series: Origin of a Mad Witch [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hogwarts Mystery
Genre: Coming Out, Crushes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Rowan Khanna, Friendship, Heartbreak, Hogwarts Third Year, Ravenclaw, Video Game: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 07:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20238697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London_Halcyon/pseuds/London_Halcyon
Summary: Rowan mysteriously vanishes after dinner, prompting a concerned Lilianna to go searching for her. The end result is an emotional conversation and a secret revealed that no one saw coming.





	Something Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I was skimming through my notebook and rediscovered this story. It was written as a dialogue exercise with the intention of training me to become comfortable writing emotional moments and characters that are crying, but I figured I would post it here for anyone that might find it interesting. Also, no, I'm still not comfortable. Rowan, I'm so, so sorry I've written you this way. Please forgive me. 
> 
> Important reminder: The game is set in the 1980s, which is a context that does play a role in this case.

I walked into the girls’ dormitory to find Tulip stretched out on her bed with a book in her hands and a toad on her chest. Pip sleepily raised her head from my own bed and gave me a yawning meow in greeting. I absentmindedly scratched behind her ears as I gazed at the bed adjacent to mine. It was empty. 

“Hey, has Rowan been back yet?” I asked Tulip.

She didn’t look up from her book as she answered. “No, I haven’t seen her since dinner.”

“Neither have I.” I suppressed an instinctive wave of worry. “She probably fell asleep in the library again. I’m gonna go find her before curfew. Or before Pince throws a fit.”

Tulip abruptly sat up with a spark of mischief in her eyes. Dennis safely hopped into her hands. “Do you want to play a prank on Pince while you’re looking? It would make for an efficient use of time.”

I smiled but waved for her to lie back down. “Not tonight. I just want to find Rowan and go to bed. Your pranks cause too much excitement for me to sleep.”

She reclined again, looking vaguely disappointed. “Very well. Let me know when you  _ are  _ in the mood to wreak havoc.”

“Will do.”

I made my way down the staircases to the lower floor and headed to the eastern part of the castle. Only a few people remained tucked away in the library when I entered. Merula gave me a wary look from behind a tower of books, clearly wishing for me to keep my distance, and Pince gave me a warning glare from her desk, clearly expecting me to start trouble. I would’ve been amused if not for the lack of the bespectacled appearance of Rowan. A red-headed, freckled presence between the shelves caught my attention instead.

“Bill,” I whispered. 

He looked up from his scroll with a friendly grin. “Hi, Lily. Doing some last minute studying?”

“Looking for Rowan. Have you seen her?”

“Sure. She was here not too long ago. Last I saw, she was heading back in the direction of the Great Hall. Thought she might be going to the West Tower. She’s not in your common room?”

“No. Maybe I just missed her.”

He looked concerned. “Is she alright?”

“As far as I know.” Now I felt concerned. “Why?”

“To tell you the truth, she was acting kind of strange.”

“Strange? Strange how?” Rowan was strange enough; it was hard for her to get stranger. 

“It’s hard to describe. She almost seemed upset.”

“Thanks, Bill. I’ll go find her.”

“Do you want any help? Two people can search the castle a lot faster.”

“No, there’s no need to raise an alarm just yet. Thanks though.”

I left the library and made my way back toward the Great Hall. Where would Rowan have disappeared to? This behavior was unlike her. Normally if she wasn’t off studying, she never left my side. Maybe she was in the courtyard? She sat by the fountain sometimes when she was feeling homesick. 

I walked outside with the certainty that it wouldn’t be so easy, but to my surprise, there she was, perched on the edge of the fountain, her hunched form appearing dark and dim in the growing twilight. 

“Rowan!” I called in relief.

She flinched but didn’t look at me. 

I quickly strode over to her. “What are you doing? It’s almost curfew. You’ll—” I broke off as I caught sight of her trembling shoulders and tear-stained face. She was crying. I sat down beside her and gently put a hand on her back, which shook with every silent sob. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She shook her head. “N-nothing happened. I-it just hurts.”

I stiffened. Was she sick? Had she been cursed? “Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?” I asked.

She shook her head again. “N-no. Not that kind of hurt. H-here.” She put a hand to her chest, right over her heart.

“What’s wrong then?” I asked softly. “Is it Bill?”

“That’s c-completely illogical.”

“But is it?”

“I don’t want to talk a-about it.”

“Come here,” I said, slipping my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder and sobbed. I embraced her and touched my head to her own, allowing her to cry in silence. She wouldn’t talk about it until she was ready, and if I continued to press, I knew I would make things worse.

Rowan was the smartest person I knew, but where she was highly intelligent, she was also emotionally vulnerable. While I had learned from a young age to absorb emotional blows with gritted teeth, she often appeared to have no defense and let them cut deep. Not that I ever looked down on her for it. She was my driving force, my inspiration of infinite possibilities. I was her support, the one to catch her if she slipped. She was my best friend, and I would do anything for her, including be a shoulder to cry on with no additional questions asked.

Her breath continued to come in short, uneven gasps, and he shoulders trembled violently as she struggled to speak. “I shouldn’t f-feel this way,” she cried, her words muffled in my shoulder. “It’s utterly nonsensicle and stupid.”

“I know,” I hushed her.

“Nothing even h-happened. I just...and it felt like...like something broke.”

“I know.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah.”

Her breathing slowed and became less sporadic, and her trembling lessened to the occasional shuddering sob. I pulled a handkerchief out of my robes and passed it to her. She sat up a little straighter to wipe her eyes and nose but stayed leaning against me. She closed her eyes, and I could see in the movement of her chest that she was beginning to calm down.

“Do you ever see something,” she asked quietly after a while, “that is a joy to be around, and you know that everytime you see it that it will be the highlight of your day? And you think that, if you could have that one thing—just that one thing and nothing else—you would be happy forever. But you know it can never happen, and even though you tell yourself over and over that you’re being stupid or setting yourself up for disaster, you still want what you can’t have and it hurts. It hurts like...like the Cruciatus Curse never could.” She gave a pitiful laugh. “Merlin’s beard, that sounded melodramatic.”

“No, I understand,” I murmured. 

I felt her shift in surprise. “Really? Who?”

Now it was my turn to shake my head. “That doesn’t matter right now.”

“Lily?”

“I can’t, okay?”

She pulled away to look at me directly though her salt-stained glasses. I looked at the stone beneath my feet.

“I won’t laugh,” she told me sincerely. “You can’t be any more of a mess than me.”

I didn’t answer. 

“Come on, it can’t be that bad. It’s not like you’ve fallen in love with Snape or something,” she joked.

I still didn’t answer.

Her tone switched to one of alarmed disbelief. “You haven’t fallen in love with Snape, have you?”

“No. Look, Rowan, let’s just leave it be for now. We were talking about you two seconds ago.”

“You know what’s going on with me. I want to know what’s going on with my friend.”

“Rowan…”

“Lilianna.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to focus on the nauseating beating of my heart in my throat, and my hands tightly clutched my robes in an effort to stop shaking. My words stuck like barbs in the wall of my chest, refusing to come free without shredding me from the inside to out. I felt ill.

Rowan put an apologetic hand on my shoulder. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I won’t press.”

I took a shaky breath, and a single barb came free to slip out as no more than a whisper: “Penny.”

“What?”

“Penny. You asked who, and it’s Penny.”

“Penny?” she echoed in confusion. “But she’s—” Her moment of realization was clear with a simple, “Oh.”

I squeezed my eyes shut more tightly, feeling my face burning.

“That’s okay,” she told me gently.

I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” She pulled me into a hug. “You’re okay.”

“No, I’m not,” I mumbled into her armpit.

“You will be. Both of us will.” She suddenly laughed happily and hugged me tighter, repeating, “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

I pulled away to see her grinning at me, and I unexpectedly felt the urge to smile too. “What is it?”

She laughed again. “It’s not exactly funny, but I realized that since we both have our own struggles to deal with, we can get through them together. I mean, I always knew that, but I never would’ve thought… Well, not that it changes anything, but still…”

I laughed too, feeling a great weight leave my chest, but as the once compressed space expanded, I found that I couldn’t breathe. My breath dragged unwillingly against my throat, and my eyes burned.

Rowan’s alarm returned. “What’s wrong?”

I covered my face with my hands, ashamed to suddenly find myself crying. “I was just so afraid.”

She gently hugged me again. “You’re my friend,” she murmured. “I thought you knew you’re always safe with me.”


End file.
